South Australia reacts to 1850s mass exodus of its males to Victorian goldfields with escorts, assay and Bullion Act
South Australian police commissioner Alexander Tolmer headed the escort bringing back gold worth millions of pounds from Victoria goldfields in 1852-54. At left: An ingot made from the golf brought back to the assay office set up at the government teasury buildings on the corner of King William and Flinders streets, Adelaide city.
South Australia responded with novel solutions to the financial crisis created by the mass exodus by 1852 of more than a third of the colony’s male population to the Victorian goldfields. The gold seekers took with them most of the ready cash and caused a run on the South Australian banks for coin.
In a rescue operation, the South Australian government introduced the Bullion Act in 1852, that effectively transferred gold into legal tender.
After George Tinline, temporary manager of the South Australian Banking Company, lobbied the government successfully to place its money at the Adelaide banks, the Legislative Council passed the Bullion Act. This enabled uncoined gold to be assayed and minted. This gold would come from the South Australian diggers in Victoria.
A fixed price of £3/11/- an ounce was authorised by the government to be offered for all uncoined gold brought back to South Australia
An assay office was opened in Adelaide city to receive the successful South Australian prospectors’ gold and to melt and purify the parcel of each depositor into a separate ingot stamped only with its weight. The banks issued special certificates for ingots to be used as legal tender for the 12 months of the Act.
Within the first two weeks, deposits at the assay office were valued at £24,000. Small buildings were hurriedly put up for the gold melting and bullion making operations on the northern side of the courtyard of the former treasury buildings (later Adina Hotel) in Flinders Street, Adelaide city. (The layout could be seen on the 1881 Smith Survey but the buildings were replaced in 1907 by the three-storey building on the northern side of the courtyard.)
To further attract safe and guaranteed deliveries of gold to Adelaide, a monthly armed escort under the control of police inspector Alexander Tolmer was set up to bring the gold back from Victoria. The first escort arrived at the government treasury building in Flinders Street in March, 1852, and offloaded 5,000 ounces.
The total gold assayed in 1852 was worth £1,449,873. In 1852-54, gold brought into South Australia was valued at £1,820,369. Twenty-two and a half ounces of gold could buy an 80 acre section of land in the country and diggers were keen to embrace this.
Sale of rural crown land reached £400,000 in 1854, with diggers returning from Victorian gold rush using their ingots. This fuelled a rural boom, with a flurry of railways built.
South Australian wheat farmers had already done well out of the ready market on the Victorian gold fields. South Australian had become the agricultural bread basket for the other Australian colonies.